It Runs In The Family
by angelofjoy
Summary: Henry and Lucas investigate a body that turns up on a park bench by the river, but the case doesn't go according to plan.


**A/N: This is my first Forever Fic! So please go easy on me. I will be writing more, I'm sure, because I miss this show sooooooooo much! I'm so sad it's over!**

 **Anyway, this story happened thanks to the wonderful people over at The Beta Branch. They posted a set of 5 prompts as an October Challenge for their writers and I worked on all 5 as a Five Fics for Five Fandoms kind of project for myself. The other prompts are scattered throughout the rest of my stories. I hope you like this one!**

 **Based on the prompt:** ** _Dig a grave, a grave, a grave for my friend._**

It Runs In The Family

It had happened before. It had been a career and a mantra of sorts for the immortal Doctor Henry Morgan. With every grave dug came a deeper dread, because immortality was a curse, not a blessing.

Even though there were people in his long life who had tried to understand, tried to convince him that immortality was a good thing, no one ever truly knew what it was like to watch each person you loved die, while you continue, unceasingly, to live. To take comfort in the knowledge that life would go on, because it did, was a common element of the human condition. It was comfortless to a man who had to ride along the waves of an everlasting life, as one life ended and a new one started - for everyone but him.

Standing in the dark now, a gardening shovel in one and and an oil lamp in the other lighting the patch of earth below, Henry Morgan listened as the man in the hole complained about the labour.

"I just don't get it, Henry," Lucas said as he straightened out and stretched before he climbed out of the hole to rest. Henry dropped in to continue the digging. "Why not just wait for the authorities? We'd have permission tomorrow to get at the body - why are we out here doing the labour ourselves? There are machines for this."

"This isn't even the grave site, Lucas, this is an experiment," Henry said as he tossed a shovelful of dirt out of the hole.

"We're digging for nothing?"

"No, not for nothing. We are digging to establish a base line. When our victim was buried, it was a different time and there weren't machines that would dig the grave for them. Although we can tell that the grave of our victims was disturbed, it was all put back in place, without the body. We are digging now to establish a timeline." Henry said between graceful tosses of soil.

The earth moved away easily. It was sandy and light, and the shovel penetrated through it with a sharp swish and a hushed thud as Henry's booted foot hit the bottom of the hole.

"How long has our victim been exposed to air and what are the conditions below ground? These elements are all going to play a part in the decomposition and break down of the body, much of which I believe happened after being removed from this ground. What is different? Why was the body so well preserved here? Why would he, of all the others, need to be brought back to the surface? Tomorrow we will see what was placed back in that hole, but for now we are trying to answer the why of it all."

"It's because there are crazy people in the world. You can't explain everything, least of all the mind of a psychopath," Lucas argued.

"Scientifically speaking, you're wrong, but I understand the sentiment."

"What do you mean?"

"You can explain the mind of a psychopath - there have been in depth studies and triggers. Research has been done for hundreds of years on the brain, and surely we cannot pretend to know it all, but we do know a great deal about why psychopaths and sociopaths function." Henry continued as he stopped to rest, looking up at Lucas who had taken hold of the lamp and shown it down on him. He leaned on the top of the shovel, his breath visible in the chill of the autumn evening. "Generally speaking, however, we cannot explain why people do the things they do in the moments when they do them, we can only follow the progression and explain the succession by following it back to its origins. It is at that point when we can take a person, clump them into a medically acceptable definition of psychosis and thereby explain the why."

"So why are we digging this random hole?"

"I'm digging. You are trying to piece together my logic, thereby proving my point."

"And your point is what exactly?"

"The point is, Lucas, that we have to go back to the beginning to figure out the ending."

"Okay, so we are digging a metaphorical grave for a metaphorical body that will one day be dug up again and will wind up decomposing because of it's exposure to oxygen as it sits on a park bench overlooking the river?"

"Exactly."

"You don't think it was just a random act?"

"I do not."

"You think this case goes back a hundred years?"

"I think the body of our dead man is significant to the case, yes."

"You know we could get into a lot of trouble for doing this, right?" Lucas asked with a sigh as he crouched at the edge of the hole and held the oil lamp out to see Henry's face.

"And that's the fun in it," Henry's face twisted into his signature smile.

"Like skinny dipping in the Hudson and getting caught?" Lucas accused.

"That's is a different and much longer story. Maybe I'll tell you sometime, Lucas, but for now, we have work to do. Hand me the kit, I think we've reached out mark."

The hole was filled much quicker than it was dug - gravity and all - and as the night wore on, Henry and Lucas returned to the Antique shop with their samples to an anxiously awaiting Abraham.

"Abe, what happened?" Henry asked upon seeing the change in the usually charismatic man.

"Detective Martinez has been looking for you. She wouldn't give details, but she said it has to do with your case and that you need to stop everything you are doing and reevaluate. Then she handed me this," Abe explained and handed Henry a copy of an old newspaper article.

"That's you!" Lucas exclaimed as he looked over Henry's shoulder at the picture that accompanied the clipping. "But it can't be because it's dated 1912."

"The Morgan genetics are very strong. I looked exactly like my grandfather," Henry countered nonchalantly and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed the notion. It was a story he told often to cover up his unfortunate truth. Lucas bought it.

"This is true," Abe nodded.

"So you are Doctor Henry Morgan Junior?" Lucas added and pointed at Henry's name in the paper.

"Technically, Henry Morgan the Third, but I've not had to use that name in years. Granddad died shortly after this was taken and my father went by William."

"How did your grandfather die?" Lucas asked.

Henry knew that Lucas admired him. He even believed that he was the most interesting person Lucas had known in his lifetime. Any little anecdote or lesson Henry could bestow on the eager young man made Lucas feel closer to his mentor and his mentor felt closer to someone in this point in his life. It was a closeness that Henry had wanted to avoid, having lost so many loved ones, but was inevitable because of Lucas's persistence.

"I was nothing spectacular, Lucas," Henry chuckled. "He had a heart attack in the spring of 1913, and although he survived the initial incident, he died a week later of complications. I never knew the man. My father died in 1979, three years after I was born. I was the last of his children, the only boy, and a result of his fourth marriage to a woman who could have been his granddaughter, let alone, his wife." Henry stopped and shook his head. This part of his story had been true, or relatively so.

Falling silent for a long moment, he remembered those days with his father. The fighting, the illness, the wives and children - always waiting for the son to carry the name and the fortune. His mother may not have been as young as he portrayed, but she was young by modern standards, and he'd been raised in a house of great wealth to see the corruption and duty he was supposed to live up to. He was older when his father fell ill, had been educated and turned away from the family business, but remained the loyal son of a wealthy man. Little did any of them know that the name would die away while Henry lived forever and the family business would falter to modernity.

"She was the same age as my oldest sister's daughter. She married him for his money and got nothing of it because his children fought for it." Henry continued when he noticed that Lucas was staring at him and he wondered how long he'd gone silent.

"The women, in my family tree, have a much more illustrious story but that is a story for another time. What did you tell Jo, Abe?"

"That you and Lucas had gone out for drinks and that I didn't know when you'd be back."

"A lie she would see through, at once, because if we go for drinks, we go to the same place and she would know to check there," Lucas stated.

"But you also have a cellular phone, Lucas, and it hasn't rung all night," Henry countered.

"I turned it off so it couldn't be traced."

"It can still be traced," Abe said with a wave of his hand. "You might want to check your messages."

"Come, let us away to the lab, we'll call Jo from there," Henry said as he lifted and rolled the Persian rug off of the hidden door. Henry went ahead, knowing how much Lucas had enjoyed the idea of a secrete space.

Henry had never intended for people to know about his laboratory but Adam had been hell bent on uncovering all of Henry's secrets. First the attempt on his life, and the subsequent death of the intruder, brought a lot to the surface. It threw his home life into the spot light and the spaces had been investigated and brought out of the shadows. Henry knew that Lucas would not venture down without an invitation and when the opportunity arose, based on Lucas's efforts and need for knowledge - bringing Henry boxes of earth to investigate on a previous case involving Abigail - Henry decided that Lucas was worth of his friendship and openness.

"To the bat cave!" Lucas said with excitement and stopped when Henry shook his head. "Sorry."

Abe had been correct: Jo Martinez had called Lucas several times, leaving messages that became more and more suspicious as the evening wore on. As he was busy with his phone, Henry had set to work.

The copy of the article that Jo had brought in was an interesting clue. Henry remembered the man now. They had worked together a long time ago in a small community. Henry had come to the community in one of his fits of flight, while the man, then a young man, had lived in the community and worked in the family business all his life.

The family took Henry in and gave him the opportunity to establish himself because the small town was in desperate need of a physician. Once established, Henry stayed in there until the war started, the first of two great wars he would participate in. His friend, however, died in 1915, not because of the war but because of an accident involving a pair of horses, or so Henry was told when he returned in 1918 and picked up his quiet little practice.

The article was strange because the man who was found on the park bench was indeed dated to the right time frame, they'd figured that with their carbon testing, but the man was murdered. He had been stabbed thirteen times in the upper torso. The body was well-preserved enough to determine the cause of death but otherwise too decomposed. The weapon was long but had a blunt tip. It could have been any number of things, or the decomposition of the wound patterns could have changed. Without absolute proof, Henry couldn't know why Jo brought the article, it had nothing to do with anything they were investigating.

The picture had been taken at the first fourth of July that Henry had ever celebrated. As an English man, he had his misgivings about it, but he was grateful of the hospitality of the people who took him in. It had been a simpler time.

Henry's reminiscing was interrupted when Lucas ended his phone call.

"She's mad," Lucas said with a sigh, "and she's on her way here so, fair warning, prepare yourself."

"We're going to be fine," Henry said and put Lucas to work to end his anxiety.

Jo walked in several minutes later and it was clear, as she descended the stairs, that she was not pleased.

"Good evening Jo," Henry welcomed her with a smile as Lucas waved.

"Don't give me any of that, Henry, I know you're hiding something from me."

"What do you think I am hiding?"

"Well, for one, why are you and Lucas all of a sudden partners in crime?"

"All of a sudden? Lucas is my protégé, we work together. He's very good at what he does."

Lucas beamed.

"Wipe that silly grin off your face Lucas, I know you two are up to something."

"We're doing science!" Lucas stated.

"Then why were you out in the cemetery?" Jo asked and crossed her arms.

"We were collecting soil samples from varying depths to paint a picture of the decomposition of that which was buried in it," Henry explained. "Just a little bio-organics, you know, things we can't actually do while on the job."

"Very interesting stuff," Lucas added as he motioned to the beakers and bottles around him. "Look, we can't have fire at the precinct but in Henry's super secret laboratory, we can play with all sorts of fun things!" he motioned to a row of brightly flickering Bunsen Burners.

Jo sighed audibly and set her stance. "Cut the crap!"

"Seriously, this is what Henry had planned for tonight. We dug the holes manually," Lucas said.

"I know, I watched, because I figured that's where you'd go. You two are creatures of habit, strange and unusual habits, but habits none the less. And you're pissing me off for keeping things from me, things that might get you in trouble, and that's turning into habit!" Jo scolded.

"I was curious and I dragged Lucas along," Henry confessed.

"I went along because I wanted to," Lucas corrected. "It was kinda fun, and I felt like we were doing something useful with our time, rather than sitting at home playing video games or drinking in bars. I probably would have gone with Henry regardless of what he had planned. He's the smartest and most interesting person I know. Why would you not want to tag along?"

"Because you could have gotten into big trouble." Jo said and Henry could tell that she was becoming more and more frustrated with the two of them.

"This is true, and I apologize. I will get permission next time," Henry jumped in again and broke the tension with a grin.

"So, what have you two figured out?" Jo asked as she crossed her arms again.

"Well, it's very sandy dry soil but only down deeper. Then, as we work our way back to the surface, there was a strange sedimentary level which could have been a number of things, but because it is still so dry down deeper, I would say it is from a flooding event that moved on quickly and deposited the layer of clay as it moved along."

"The area is a flood plain," Jo commented.

"Which might explain the decompositional stages the body went through, or lack thereof. The fast moving water deposited a layer of soil on top of the grave which was likely rich in other matters, causing the ground to almost seal itself and then over time, through seasons of growth and decay, more layers were formed above that. We dug as deep as one might for a grave and the very ground itself told the story. The body, for a time, went through its usual processes and then the water event sealed in the dryness and moisture did not penetrate as far as it might have otherwise."

"And you think that is why the body is mummified?" Jo asked.

"The dryer the better, but as it was exposed to the moister air conditions of the river's edge, it started to decay at a heightened rate," Henry answered.

"Great, so you figured out why the body is the way it is, but did you figure out why that body was excavated and placed down by the river?"

"No," Henry shook his head, "but we might understand better when we look into the grave that was filled in."

"Excavation is set for the morning. We'll handle it professionally and bring in whatever we find. You will stay in the lab," Jo said with a nod that hammered home her orders. "What about the article?"

"What about it?" Henry asked with a shrug.

"It was his great grandfather - apparently they have very good genes those Morgans," Lucas explained proudly.

"The man in the article, Mr Joseph Briggs, is our victim. The DNA results came back today, they matched to a repeat offender on the paternal side who is in our database. Carl Oliver Briggs."

"Is he a suspect?" Henry looked up from his work once more.

"He's incarcerated at this time," Jo answered.

"So not a family thing, hmm."

"Yeah, well, back to square one," Jo sighed and turned toward the stairs. "Don't stay up too late playing mad scientists. You two have to work in the morning," she added and fled.

"Party pooper!" Lucas grumbled and Henry chortled.

The next morning, bright and early, Henry made his way into the office and found Lucas already there, but he looked discouraged.

"What is the matter, Lucas?" Henry asked.

"NYPD apprehended a pair of old men trying to tamper with the crime scene. They'd gone back to the grave and were digging again. They confessed to tampering with the grave and the removal of the body. The site was excavated and in the box was a pickaxe and a box of letters. In the letters, NYPD found a confession to the murder of Joseph Briggs and the cover up by his friend and neighbour Martin Hoxely." Henry watched as a crest fallen Lucas explained the findings of the morning. His shoulders were slumped and his demeanour one that was unusual for the young, exuberant examiner.

Justice had been served. Martin Hoxely was guilty and now the truth of the murder was out, but Lucas was upset by the abrupt end to their investigation.

"Hoxely, that name is familiar..." Henry said and was frustrated that he didn't remember.

"Caroline Hoxely-Bryant, age 104, died last week," Lucas said and tossed the newspaper across the table toward Henry. "I recognized the name too and dug it up. The men who defaced the grave were her sons. They wanted to right a family wrong. The pickaxe and the letters had been hidden in Caroline's home until the boys found it while they were cleaning it out."

"But why place the body down by the river?" Henry asked.

"In the statement given to NYPD," said Jo as she walked into the office. "The Bryant boys pointed to a letter from their mother's mother to her secret lover, Joseph Briggs. They used to meet by the river so that their families wouldn't know and she begged him not to go to war. There was a medical record found among the letters. It was signed by a Doctor Henry Morgan and it stated that Joseph Briggs was unfit for active service," Jo explained. "Genetics are a funny thing, you have almost the exact same signature as your grandfather." She placed a plastic evidence bag down in from of him. "I figured you'd like to see it before it was filed into evidence."

"That's uncanny!" Lucas gasped.

Henry smiled slightly and bowed his head.

"What is the matter Henry?" Jo asked. "Disappointed that you didn't get to solve this one?"

"No, disappointed that whatever Granddad did to help this man, whether he was fit or unfit for war, he still died a terribly violent death and wasn't able to spend his time with the woman he loved. But I guess justice was done at last," Henry answered sombrely.

"Some things never change, I suppose," Jo said sadly now. "No matter how much time passes."

"So, what now?" Lucas asked.

"We'll wrap up the case, see if we can find any relatives for Mr. Briggs, and likely put him to rest once and for all."

"So dig another grave?" Lucas asked.

"A grave for a friend," Henry sighed and moved off to his office.


End file.
